• The Wall Street Journal , Wednesday, August 6, 2008 10:03 AM

A pair of blue jeans that magically fit four teenage girls took precedence in the marketing of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" when it opened in 2005. After the film's mediocre theatrical run, two of the film's unknowns -- Blake Lively and America Ferrera -- emerged as major television stars. Marketing for the new movie capitalizes on the girls' newfound fame.

The sequel's poster features a close-up of the girls' four faces, largely ignoring the iconic traveling pair of pants that form the film's back story. "The jeans are still the glue of the film," says Sue Kroll, president of world-wide marketing at Warner Bros., which is distributing the film, "but this time around, the movie enjoys the wonderful advantage of the girls' own unique appeal. When you have that kind of star power, you gotta use it."

To bolster ticket sales for the new movie, producer Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. are looking for support not just from teens, but also from college-age women. Kroll says Warner Bros. deliberately marketed the film to a broader female audience including older women. And the jeans haven't been completely forgotten. The marketing team arranged for bins to be placed in certain clothing stores and movie theaters around the country for people to recycle their old pants.

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